


Just the Smoke from Another Fire

by innie



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Arranged Marriage, Blow Jobs, Cunnilingus, F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Spies & Secret Agents, Spy Gadgets, Undressing Their Partner, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Virginity, awkward arranged marriage wedding night sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-11-28 06:30:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18204764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Percival comes up with a plan to solve the problems of his niece Roxanne and his friend Merlin.  A marriage is not the most obvious solution, but it might just be the best.(What Kingsman might have looked like right after WWI, if it had been founded about a century earlier.)





	Just the Smoke from Another Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anarchycox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/gifts).



> (The song that provided the title will be revealed when my secret identity is. And now . . . drumroll please . . . all is revealed! The song is Sheena Easton's "Strut.")
> 
> anarchycox, let us not speak of how many attempts I made to write something that I thought you might like. Let us instead cross our fingers that this fits the bill.

"But Cousin James is a half-wit!" Roxy expostulated, her face reddening with her vehemence.

"He is not overly blessed with sagacity," Michael said diplomatically, unwilling to deny the fundamental truth she spoke, "but he does have qualities that will stand him in good stead as a Kingsman," he continued, equally averse to giving her false hope. "He is strong and brave and eager." He wished that the world were different, that he could propose her as his candidate for the position of Lancelot and not have the matter treated as a grand jest. Roxy was going to blaze a trail through the world, and it could only be to Kingsman's benefit to have all of her intelligence and bravery in their service.

But it was a man's world. His nephew James would have to be his candidate, and the boy would do well enough, though Michael couldn't stretch his optimism so far as to envision James as the kind of superstar that Galahad or – modesty aside – he himself was.

Arthur would be glad to have such a well-bred boy in the ranks after the disruption of the war had meant he'd had to make the agency, however briefly, a meritocracy rather than a haven for the weak-chinned (as Harry had once liked to proclaim in a tone calculated to infuriate Chester, before the loss of an entire generation of young men had set the world reeling). That relaxation of one particular standard for entry was, as far as Michael was concerned, the best thing to happen to Kingsman since its founding as an agent of imperial law and order, because that was how they'd got Merlin. A working-class Scot with a brain too formidable to deny, Merlin built all of the ingenious gadgets that had saved the lives of each and every knight a dozen times over, himself not least.

*

"Uncle Michael," Roxy pleaded, "is there nothing you can do? I am prepared, I swear it, and I will bring no shame or dishonour down on you." She knew that all of the games Uncle Michael played with her and Cousin James – at which she always thrashed the imbecile, who smiled and brushed her victories aside as if they signified nothing – were designed to test and improve her command of logic, of languages, of codes, of all the talents needed to survive as a spy. It could _not_ all be for naught; a knight whose name she would never know (God save him) had died, and here she was, ready to assume his mantle. No one would ever suspect a girl of such exquisite breeding could possibly be a spy, and she would be all the more effective for their blindness.

"Dearest," he said without evasion, "the time is not propitious, but do not despair. I will not give up and nor shall you." She knew she had to be satisfied with that reassurance that he would keep his eyes peeled for opportunities for her to make the leap, but it was hard to swallow that she was barred from so much simply because she'd been born female.

"Yes, uncle," she said, picking up her embroidery and stabbing the needle through the cloth quite viciously. Stupid James, who would never even know that he was snatching the world from her waiting hands. "Would you care for some tea?"

* * *

"Percival," Merlin said, aghast at the loss of a fine brain, "you've gone mad."

"If you're going to insult me, my friend, you had better call me by my name. Particularly when I am plotting and trying to draw you into my web." Michael was rather pleased with himself when the sally had Callum relaxing and even smiling, though with only one corner of his mouth.

"Very well: Michael, you've gone mad."

Michael allowed himself a long sip of his tea; he'd never asked what Merlin's special blend comprised, but it always tasted delicious. "Not at all. You need an assistant to oversee all of the agents, as our number has more than doubled since the war." There was a flash of pain on Merlin's normally impassive face, and Michael, aware he was trespassing, hastened on. "I've raised the matter with Arthur –"

"Have you indeed?" Merlin said, looking not altogether pleased.

"Because I knew that you would not, my friend. You will not put your hand out because in your mind someone else always needs aid more than you do." Michael was careful to phrase the matter thus, instead of saying what he really thought: Callum thought everyone else _deserved_ aid more than he did.

"And Arthur said . . .?"

"That he would only review a formal written request from the quartermaster. As if you were not much more than that – you are our engineer, our strategist, our –"

"Kingsman's commoner and lowly Scot," Merlin said, as if it had been flung into his face too often for it to hurt him yet.

"Callum," Michael said, setting down his cup, "that is why we must go around him. Blast Arthur and blast any of the others who cannot see past your accent or your antecedents." Merlin snorted, and Michael grinned at him, relaxing a little at the thought that Callum might actually be receptive to the notion. "I have found the perfect assistant for you, whose training has been impeccable. And Arthur need never know of her work."

He appreciated that Merlin didn't bother to pretend to have misheard him. "Who will he think she is?"

"Your wife, as she will be in truth," Michael responded, and smiled.

* * *

"Mother, please, I assure you that I love him most earnestly," Roxy practised saying as she sat in front of the looking-glass. "Callum loves me and has asked me to be his wife." She frowned at her reflection. "Uncle Michael has played chaperone diligently, Mother. May Mr. Lennox have permission to speak with you and Father?" Pulling a face, she tried to determine which expression to wear when introducing her parents to a man she'd never met but was intent on marrying. Uncle Michael would have much to answer for if this Callum Lennox were anything less than the best of men.

And, she supposed with a guilty start, for none of her own responsibilities had troubled her mind thus far, she would have to be a good wife to this man. She could make him happy, she was sure; she'd had suitors enough to suppose herself quite pleasing, though they'd all been of Cousin James's ilk and therefore not worth the breath it took to speak of them. Or _to_ them – they'd none of them expected her to say anything worth listening to, just chatter away witlessly whilst they ogled her form or dreamt of her dowry.

Oh, _why_ could Uncle Michael not have told her what her prospective husband looked like, at least?

All she could do was try to ensure that the day went as smoothly as possible. She found her gathering basket, gardening gloves, and sharp shears and went out to the lane. The wild roses would be bright spots of cream against the dark wood of the drawing room, and their perfume was heavenly. Father often looked drugged by the scent when he stuck his nose in a bowl of them, and the more she could dull his wits, the better the chance she had of passing this engagement off as the product of a proper courtship. Mother would be harder to fool, but Uncle Michael could allay her fears easily by averring his role in introducing them.

Satisfied that she had mapped out the afternoon to a nicety, she had only one thing left to do: stew over the looks and manner of the man she would wed in a matter of days.

*

Callum was, for once, glad of an arm to lean on, because the first sight he had of his bride was staggering. She was a beam of sunlight from her rich gold hair to her lemon-yellow frock, and she smelled like she had been showered by rose petals wanting her warmth. One creamy petal clung yet to her hair, as if to assure him the notion were not as fanciful as he'd feared. She was young and bright and lovely, and ought to have the chance to make a proper match rather than being yoked to him.

And yet . . . Michael had assured him that this marriage would solve her problems as well as his, and that they ought to rely on one another.

Whatever the truth of her home situation was, she was evidently counting on him to play the doting suitor and get her out of there. He took one scented hand in his own rough one, turned it swiftly, and brushed her inner wrist with his lips. She looked taken aback – was the gesture meant to be performative only, not allowing his mouth to touch her skin? – but she smiled most agreeably for the benefit of everyone else in the room. "Mother, Father, this is Callum Lennox."

Her voice was pleasant to hear, though most aristocratic Englishwomen's screeching tones and sharp accents made him shudder. He smiled down at her and forgot all else as she met his eyes fearlessly and let a smile grow in her own. Oh, she was a temptation already, standing so demurely in her father's drawing room as if he could not feel the banked heat of her.

Michael's laughter broke his brown study. "You see? I am a matchmaker who knows what he is about!"

* * *

Roxy was nearly ready to rip the beaded strands from the shoulder of her wedding gown and strangle as many people as she could get her hands on – the hairdresser, to start with, and then perhaps the man (it had to be a man) who'd designed her shoes, and so on down the line. None of this was in the least necessary; she was marrying someone to whom it made no difference what she looked like, for whom her greatest use would be her mind.

Reminding herself of that fact was not as consoling as she had hoped. Callum – she was _not_ going to do as Mother suggested and call him "Mr. Lennox" or learn to respond only to "Mrs. Lennox" in turn – cut an intimidating figure, all that lean, strong height topped with deep eyes that seemed to see everything. Appealing, too, with those clever hands and shy smile. He very well suited her idea of a husband, and she only wished not to disappoint him as his wife.

 _He_ would have no use for all the fripperies with which she'd been weighed down on this day, or the elaborate waves the hairdresser was trying to tease her front hair into, having already plaited and pinned up the back, securing it with a jewelled comb. Perhaps he'd even prefer her to bob her hair to be smarter and more efficient; at the moment, she could see the virtue in such an argument.

How she was supposed to totter down the aisle with a silver sixpence in her shoe in addition to all of the frills and beads and jewels, she had no idea. How had she allowed herself to be so distracted by Uncle Michael's latest lessons – first ciphers and then discreet observation and memorisation – and the prospect of marrying Callum that she'd apparently given Mother free rein to make her wedding look as lavish as any three royal nuptials put together? But it was the eleventh hour, and there was no use in complaining, even to herself.

Soon, this would all be over, and she could get out of this heavy, itchy dress and these terrible high-heeled shoes and begin to learn all of the clever things her husband had devised to keep the Kingsmen safe.

*

"Lass," Callum said when at last they were alone, steered by Michael away from the receiving line and into a motor car that took them to a Kingsman cottage that was apparently his, now that he had a wife to keep. "I hope you will be happy."

"I am sure I will be, given how much Uncle Michael –"

"His codename is Percival," he said, guessing why she'd interrupted herself.

"Percival," she said, nodding. "Percival was ever my favourite. He said you support, equip, and enable Kingsman single-handedly and that there would be much with which I could aid you."

"That was the reasoning he offered me as well," he said, slowly. "I'm called Merlin."

"The wizard," she said, evidently struck by the notion. "Yes, that seems quite fitting, though I would not have been surprised to hear you are called Excalibur or Avalon or Camelot or some such name. Uncle Michael said you are the heart of Kingsman as well as its brain."

"Ah," he said, startled by such a generous compliment, so freely offered twice over. Even more to the point, he was surprised that he was managing to speak so easily with this ravishing woman who was now, in name at least, his _wife_. "That is most kind." He turned his head and saw the trunks he had packed over the last few days in one corner, the valise stuffed with a toothbrush, a spare shirt, and his latest drawings lying atop them. Roxanne's trunks, far more extensive, crowded the opposite wall of the master bedroom. "Shall we start now?"

"Oh," she said, clearly crestfallen.

"What is it?" he asked, casting about for what she might need. "Are you hungry? Shall we see what's in the cupboards?"

"I thought we might have a celebration," she said, looking up at him and biting her lip, already pink and plump and eye-catching.

"Certainly," he said, for if ever a moment of his life deserved to be commemorated, it was this one when he had a bride more beautiful than he could have dreamt. What she wished to celebrate, however, was still a mystery to him. "How so?"

"Like this, good sir," she said, a mischievous sparkle in her eye as she stepped forward and kissed him.

*

Callum's kiss in the church had caught only her cheek (whether that was a sign of his nerves, a disinclination to take her mouth in church, or simply how Scots wedded she did not know) and Roxy revelled in the taste of him now. Her first kiss – more importantly, _their_ first kiss – lit a fire in her that she thought might rage for aeons, flames fanned ever higher by his hands, his breath, his willingness to share his life's work with her.

It struck her suddenly that though he was obligingly bent low enough to accept her kiss, he wasn't behaving as if such a kiss were his right or even a source of gratification for him. Mortified, she stepped back. "Are you – we are wed," she reminded him.

"Did you want me to bed you?" he asked, eyes wide, and she saw sincere surprise written all over his face, though he probably prided himself on his phlegmatic physiognomy; men, even good ones like Uncle Michael and her Callum, were truly simple creatures at heart. 

She rose up on tip-toe, nodding all the while, and then one of her justly maligned shoes skidded out from under her, pitching her forward into his arms, and they landed on the bed. Being on top of him was quite a pleasurable sensation, and lying like this, nose-to-nose, she was sure she had every last particle of his attention. "I thought, that since my sex forbids me much, I should enjoy one of the few benefits accorded to me: the marital bed with the man of my choice."

"Lass, you don't know what you're asking for," he said after a long pause, which she was certain he had filled in his head by listing all of the ways he could not possibly be her choice.

"I think I do," she answered him, kissing the pale throat above his cravat. "I did not tell you, did I, that your morning suit makes you look very handsome."

He swallowed, and the sensation of his Adam's apple bobbing against her lips was delicious. She was a married woman with her husband laid out beneath her, and the promise of a new life filled with purpose stretching out ahead of her; there was nothing to fear.

"It conceals much," he said, "and I have kept the worst of myself from your view. Leave me be, Roxanne."

"Roxy," she corrected automatically, rolling her weight off him. "Show me, and let me decide for myself whether you are to be left alone or compelled to satisfy me." The words were deliberately goading, but she must have overshot her mark, for his green gaze darkened and he sat up, the line of his shoulders saying very clearly _touch me not_.

He bent low, rolling up his trousers to bare his lower legs – a striking amalgam of his own handsome flesh and shining metal cages that curved to fit them exactly. "The war did not leave many of us whole, Roxanne, and I cannot walk or stand long on my own." He looked disgusted with himself, which she found she could not bear; she reached up and pulled him down on top of her.

"I did not ask you to stand on your own," she reminded him, feeling his lean cheek fill her palm, a lovely sensation. "I asked you to make me your wife as I am claiming you as my husband."

"Still?" he asked, doubt filling the single word.

"Still," she confirmed, "and now. Only, a moment, I beg you –" She could see the fear building in his eyes at the delay, and quashed it firmly. "This infernal gown is most uncomfortable. I will need your assistance in exorcising it once and for all."

He stared, then laughed as she'd meant him to; his laugh rumbled through her, touching her intimately. "Do not speak ill of the dress. You're a vision in it, utterly enchanting."

"As Merlin, you should be used to enchantments."

"None as potent as you," he swore.

She kissed him for that vow and stood up, presenting him with her back, that he might find the fastenings and work at them. She couldn't quite remember how the wretched thing had gone on her, as she'd had other matters on her mind; one moment she'd been light as a feather in an eyelash-fine silk slip and the next she had the dead weight of jewels and beads and satin encasing her like an all-round carapace.

Her husband's hands were on her, scrabbling fruitlessly at the textured surface of her gown; they were so big that his fingers touched her breasts even when his thumbs were on her spine. "Lass," he said, "I fear the engineering of your gown is beyond me." She leaned into his hands, frustrated, and let him hold up her weight. "Stay, I have an idea."

Before she could demand that he share it and hear her thoughts on the matter, he'd swung her up to stand on the bed, hands meeting around her waist. She stood uneasily, her blasted shoes sinking into the soft surface. His smiles were even more attractive when they were so wicked. "And now," he said, "I have _many_ ideas."

*

Oh, his wife was a vision, even with that damnable dress like armour concealing her every curve. He knelt – the difficulty in bending his legs was repaid by her quick gasp – and removed her shoes, fingers sure and swift on the minuscule straps. He laid his lips on her then, kissing her beautifully turned ankles and moving up, his lips finding the flesh his hands were baring. The sheer weight of the gown as it pooled in his hands was astonishing, and he couldn't fathom how his wife, built along the lines of a fawn, could have supported it. The scent of her grew stronger as he drew nearer the small patch of curls at her sex, and he wanted nothing so much as to taste her.

He dipped his head and sucked at her, dropping the folds of her dress and under-dress – over his own head, as it turned out, but no matter – to clutch at her hips, keeping her upright when her knees buckled as though they were as treacherous as his own. The flavour of her was intoxicating, the tang of her sharp as good scotch. Her cries were just as sweet, sobs that couldn't quite muster enough breath to come forth, throaty mewls that only spurred him to take more of her soft flesh into his mouth and stroke it with his tongue.

"Callum," he heard as her legs shook and she slid neatly between his hands to collapse onto the bed he was kneeling helplessly beside. The gown ripped as she went, as he'd been distending it from the inside, and he ducked free and sat back to survey the damage. "A good start," his wife proclaimed to the ceiling. Roxy was panting, quick breaths making her throat look dimpled, but she rolled to meet his mouth with her own. "Cut this gown off me if it won't come off any other way," she said against his lips. "I have done with clothing for good."

A sweet promise that was, even if it could never be kept.

*

A man should always have the sense to obey his wife; Callum's ripping the tattered gown and silk slip off her with a sudden flex of his arms was a most agreeable act to witness. That she was completely bare beneath appeared to be just as agreeable to him.

"Oh, Roxy," he said, groaning as he rose to lie on the bed next to her. His hand, already acquainted with her breast, reached to renew that friendship, and his rough palm showed considerable restraint in how gently he grasped. 

She could see that the position was far from ideal for him, however much he was enjoying it. She leaned in and licked lightly up his mouth, savouring the taste of them together. "Wait but a moment. I have ideas too."

Men's fashion was far simpler than the haute couture with which women were cursed; it was a simple matter to pull his garments from him. Or it would have been, had his clever hands not started seeking all the thousand and one pins jammed directly into her skull that were keeping the heavy sheets of her hair improbably aloft. He dragged each one slowly from its place, making her shiver as locks tumbled down and caressed her skin and his own, gradually bared. 

He threaded his long fingers through the mass of it when they were both done with their self-appointed tasks and leaned forward to bury his face in it. "I would spend my days in this sunshine, wife," he said quietly, stopping her heart with his sweetness, and then had the unmitigated gall to look surprised when she responded as rationally as possible: she got him flat on his back – merely to spare his poor legs – and rubbed the tender place he'd drunk from against the ramrod of his sex.

*

Roxy appeared not to know what to do next. He had no direct knowledge of the act himself, though he'd heard enough from his fellow soldiers to form a theory. But her sweet cunt was leaving sticky wetness on his skin, and there was no resisting her, his in name and soon to be so in deed. He dragged her up his body – she left a trail of nectar on his belly and chest – to plunder her mouth. He'd thought he was hard before, but now he felt he could call his prick stiffer than any poker with ample justification.

"Roxy," he said, her chosen name as sweet as anything else he'd put in his mouth that day. "I have heard that this will hurt you, lass."

"It would hurt me more to stop," she promised, and he would have to warn her about arriving at conclusions when she could not possibly have all the data required to reach them. "Callum, please," she said, breaking his will.

He let his fingers play in the slick folds of her sex, delighting in how sweat and her own juices had matted down the curls to the point that they were capable of concealing nothing. She was pink and swollen and hot around his fingers. He found he would rather listen to his wife's repertoire of gasps and moans and pleas than any music that had yet been composed.

No story he'd heard in the trenches ever had the woman on top, but there were few things in life as satisfying as being a pioneer. Roxy fit around him like a sheath made just for him, heated and wet and infinitely welcoming, and she rocked with such single-minded instinct on his prick that any resistance he had – any fear that he'd caused her pain – vanished like the smoke of a blown candle.

His wife cried out and collapsed on his chest just before he spent inside her, her hair a blanket spread atop them both. His mind went pleasantly blank, roused only by a novel sensation: a small sweet tongue licking curiously at one of his nipples.

He groaned. "Even a newlywed requires more time to build his strength again," he informed the top of her golden head.

She paused her ministrations to grin up at him. "But you are _magical_ , husband. I have it on good authority."

She had a point, and his fingers and mouth did not need renewal. He kissed her soundly, feeling her pleased shudder when his fingertips found the wet heat of her once more.

* * *

"It was your pretty parasol that inspired me," he tried, but his wife would not be distracted from her task, which was, of course, to drive him to distraction. She had his shirt open and was stringing kisses from one side of his chest to the other and back again. Perhaps it was a game. Or perhaps she was puzzling out a code.

"It's an umbrella that a Kingsman can carry, capable of firing projectiles," he informed her, and she hummed agreeably, reaching for his trousers.

She pulled his prick free, set her mouth to work, and then reached up with both hands, knowing he liked the look of hers – small and strong and capable – set within his. She was so good at her maddening task that it took him a shamefully long time to realise that the ring on her finger was not the band he'd placed there but a signet ring meant for a man's little finger. "Oh, you've been busy too, haven't you, wife?" he said, stroking her hair fondly.

She nodded slightly and stretched her fingers wide, silently instructing him to slip the ring from her finger. He peered at it, finally locating a mechanism of some sort inside the band. Not being able to guess what it could do, and encouraged by her leisurely licking to believe it could not possibly be dangerous – truth to tell, the slow drags of her wicked tongue made it nigh impossible for him to think at all – he engaged the mechanism. The ring burst to life in his hands, releasing a current of energy; it was, he realised, a weapon, like the umbrella, hiding in plain sight.

"Oh my clever girl," he breathed, and she kept working him with a mouth gone slack because of her smile.


End file.
